Memories
by InstigateInsanity
Summary: An old man remembers. A young woman listens. Contains mildly disturbing themes.


Trabia, to some, is an icy wasteland. To others, it's the epitome of rugged beauty.

None of this matters to the old man.

It's existence.

Nothing more.

It hasn't always been so. Once upon a time it was a home, the small cottage a castle, the ice and snow a frosty welcome far warmer than any he'd ever known. He can still remember joy in his life here, a warm sense of _belonging; _the realisation that he might have lost it all, but Hynedammit he was _happy_ for once, happy in a way his cold, structured life at Garden had never been.

_Garden._

He glances to the left, shielding his eyes. Twenty miles and two mountains away lies Trabia Garden, its cheerful veneer housing cheerful killers. Thinking of Garden always brings to mind the same image, of a smiling man in a brightly-lit carriage, offering candy for a gil or two to the neighbourhood kids. A lovable old rogue, sure enough, but when the authorities find the bodies they'll never know how the children screamed in their final moments; they'll never know the pain and humiliation Mr. Candyman visited upon them, they'll never know how in one fell swoop their innocence was destroyed, followed shortly by their lives.

The old man shakes his head, trying and failing to eliminate the thought. His memories of Garden aren't all bad, after all. Remember the Garden Festival? The first one they'd actually managed to hold in three years? Sure, he'd been dragged there against his will,

_(Liar)_

but for some strange reason, he hadn't particularly minded. The music had been good, the girl had been beautiful, and the conversation – much as he'd denied it to himself, vehemently, as he lay sleepless in bed that evening – had been wonderful. Funny how even something as horrible as the Sorceress War contained its own moments of bliss.

_Stop it._

He pinches the bridge of his nose, groaning. It's a habit he's never entirely fallen out of, and he has no doubt his old friends would mock him for it – Irvine sardonically, Zell playfully, Selphie ecstatically, Quistis gently, Rinoa –

_DON'T GO THERE._

The sun is really sinking now, the evil orange glare dulling to a deep bronze sheen. The sky is already darkening; vivid purple streaks shoot through deep, cerulean blue, a vague tint of gold from the dying sun kissing it gently. His knee is aching fiercely, and the old man curses. There will be snow tonight.

Movement catches his eye. It's too far away for his failing eye to truly make it out, but he knows what – _who,_ rather – it is.

And for the first time in days, his ancient, leathery face creases into a smile.

* * * * *

She stands in his doorway, a young woman of simple yet startling beauty. Her raven hair, shot through with streaks of brown and gold, curtains a face he'd loved since before she'd even been born. Delicate lips smile at him, and mischief shines out through hazel eyes.

"Aren't you going to let me in, Uncle Leon? It's minus twenty out here."

He scowls fiercely, knowing she'll see right through him. "About time you came to visit me," he replies gruffly, shuffling to the side. She steps through smartly, shimmying out of her greatcoat as she does so. The gold trim of her SeeD uniform glints in the firelight as the cumbersome garment is removed.

"Sorry I haven't come to see you recently," she says apologetically, hanging her coat on the hook beside the door. She grins suddenly. "I got promoted to Instructor last week! Third Class. It's been manic. Headmistress Tilmitt gave me two junior classes, and two senior ones. The seniors are good – they follow orders, do what you tell them, hell, they practically teach themselves. The juniors, on the other hand … they just – I mean – grr! They won't listen to a _word_ I say …"

The old man catches himself smiling as she rambles happily on, and begins slowly making his way toward his kitchenette. His cane makes a solid _thump _with every step he takes. As the kettle boils and he sets tea to brew, she sits on his small couch, stretching her legs out luxuriously, resting them on his small coffee table. He tells her to get them off as he shuffles back to the living area, two mugs of tea clutched precariously in one hand, his other hand working the cane.

It's an old ritual, well loved, deeply imprinted on both their minds. They drink their tea in silence, another part of the ritual; and only once the mugs are empty and the fire rebuilt do they get down to the serious task of talking.

She'll tell him all about her life at Garden. How the bells toll and the snow lions roar, how the children play and the seniors fight. How she excels at her studies, her Instructors telling her they've never seen bladework like hers since the legendary Squall Leonhart. How the same teachers sing her praises in Advanced Magic classes, a fact the old man doesn't find at all surprising.

How her friends dared her to spike Headmistress Tilmitt's coffee one morning, a prank the elderly headmistress had found highly amusing. That hadn't stopped the faculty from sentencing her to a month of hard labour, in the form of maintaining the little cemetery out the back of the Garden – a memento from the lives lost when the Galbadian missiles had utterly destroyed the institution. She had counted it an honour, not a punishment, and the old man had swelled with pride.

_Exactly like her mother._

_Stop it!_

He'd tell her stories from his own days as a SeeD. How he'd felt the first time he took a human life, and the horror that had filled him later when he'd realised that strange sensation in his chest that afternoon hadn't been revulsion (as he'd long suspected), but pride. And when she'd turned up after her own field exam, her brand new uniform creaseless and sparkling, she'd collapsed in a quivering wreck in his arms. They had cried together that night, his ancient shoulders an anchor for her.

He told her of how he thought he'd almost lost his friends, when he allowed them to undertake a suicide mission; and he told her of the guilt that had wracked him until they'd been reunited in Fisherman's Horizon.

How he'd lost everything as a child, how he had become a silent, misanthropic loner, and how he'd begun to see the world in a different light as the years slid by and he'd discovered the joy of having _friends,_ friends who cared for you, not for what you could do but for _who you are._

And he told her how he'd fallen in love. How it had slid up on him silently, disguised at first as irritation, then growing into acceptance; how that acceptance had become friendship, and how that friendship had spiraled uncontrollably into love.

And when she'd turned up to his house one morning with the ring on her finger, he'd laughed in joy and asked who the lucky man was.

"Um, Uncle Leon," she'd said, with a small grin, "I don't know how you're going to take this, but, well … her name is Ellie. Ellie Dincht."

If anything, the news that she would be marrying the granddaughter of one of his closest friends (now fifty years in his grave, and not a day went by he didn't mourn his loss) only made the old man happier.

* * * * *

The old man pokes the fire, sending a cascade of sparks twirling up the chimney. His bad knee is throbbing worse than ever; he gives the first snowflakes perhaps another fifteen minutes before they begin to fall, sweet and silent, coating a ground already three feet deep in it.

"You'll have to stay here tonight," he murmurs, raising his second mug of tea to his lips. "Snow's on the way, and it's gonna be bad. Get another couple of feet, I think."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time," she replies, taking a long sip of her own drink. "You don't mind, do you?"

He shakes his head, not bothering to reply. She always asks, even when she knows the answer.

Still, it's always hard having her here. The idea that he's lying in bed only a room away from her is enough to drive him insane. The memories are enough … the memories …

He tells her plenty about himself and his friends, but he's never mentioned their names. And to her, he is simply Leon. The strange, introverted hermit of Trabia; a vaguely sinister looking man who was kind to a little girl, lost, far from Garden, freezing in the snow.

* * * * *

He'd taken one look at her, and had stopped dead. _It can't be, it CAN'T be!_ His mind shrieked, but the more his eyes had taken in the sight, the less he'd been able to deny it. Still, inaction was the enemy of mankind, and the little girl had obviously been near death. So he'd carried her back to his little cottage and set her in front of the fire, and used his satellite phone to call Trabia Garden and let them know she was safe. And when she'd recovered, he had taken her back to Garden.

It had been the shock of his life when, three years later, she'd returned. She had never forgotten, the strange, kind man who'd saved her life. She was ten now, and was currently enjoying her first leave of duty, so she'd spent the past two months hunting the hermit and his small house down again.

Their bond had developed with a swiftness that was almost frightening for both of them. The old man had had no one to talk to, properly talk to, for almost five years; his vocal chords were rusty and growly from lack of use, and the little girl was unused to talking with strangers. And the giant black case, permanently propped up in the corner of the cottage, had frightened her a little. What was inside it? What did that snarling silver lion on the front of it mean?

Who exactly _was_ Uncle Leon?

* * * * *

Yes, he tells her his stories. Yet there are some tales he won't tell, will _never _tell, because they're too painful. He'll never tell her, for instance, how Zell died; how he'd come back from a routine mission with a bullet embedded in his left lung, another one in his liver. He'd never tell her of the screams that had emanated from the Infirmary all that long night, nor of how the brawler's hand had clutched his so hard three bones had snapped, nor of how he'd stayed by his friend's side right until the end. But it was a terrible end; there had been no peace, no revelations, just agony. Nor would he tell her of Quistis' murder in Deling City, a mugging gone bad that had left her with a hunting knife in her brain.

Perhaps, one day, he'd tell her of the Inquisition forty years ago. How yet another mad dictator had risen in the west, and how another one had dethroned President Loire and allied himself with the nutjob President of Galbadia. How they had called so vehemently for the permanent sealing of Sorceress Heartilly that he'd been forced to flee with her, to seek refuge in the remote parts of the world, moving around every few years to avoid detection.

Trabia had been perfect. A region of snow and ice, and strong magnetic forces that completely defeated even the most sensitive detection equipment. They'd built their little cottage with their bare hands, keeping each other sane with their presence and their love. More important than the cottage, though, they'd built a life for themselves.

Rinoa had fallen pregnant at the age of sixty-four, which might have been considered bizarre had she not been a sorceress. It had delighted them both, as much as it had worried them. How to raise a baby in Trabia? It couldn't be done; at least, neither of them had enough experience in the matter to feel safe in risking it. Rinoa had been too far along by the time they'd discovered her condition to risk travelling to warmer climes. And so they had done the only thing they could, and barely three days after the birth of his daughter, he'd taken her to Trabia Garden. He hadn't left a name; he was not required to. But he _had_ left her name.

Julia_._

* * * * *

"Think I'm going to turn in," the old man says, draining the last of his tea. "These old bones aren't what they used to be."

He glances over at his

_(daughter)_

guest, and chuckles softly at himself for even bothering to speak. She's deeply asleep, her empty mug clutched gently to her chest, seeking out the last remnants of warmth from the pale ceramic. The old man struggles laboriously to his feet and takes the mug, depositing both it and his own in the kitchen sink, before throwing a blanket over the sleeping girl and tucking a pillow beneath her head.

He kisses her softly on her forehead.

And as he lies in his own bed, the firelight from the next room flickering gently under his door, he remembers.

He smiles.

For once, the memories are good.

* * *

**Author Notes:** I normally don't write one shots. And, while this may not be the best one out there (pretty friggin' far from it, actually), I rather like it.

So, Q&A time. Why was it so bizarrely nonlinear? Why doesn't he tell Julia who he is? How did Rinoa die? What happened to the rest of his friends? The simple answer is, I want the reader to _think._ Make your own conclusions, and see if they gel with the gruff - yet kind - old man Squall has become.


End file.
